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Saturday, 25 July 2015

Hi everyone. I have a post over atOur Creative Corner which spotlights digital image ephemera from Stampington. I'd love it if you popped over and had a look. Just click HERE. I've got a little sneaky peek for you too:

Thursday, 2 July 2015

Good morning all. Two posts in as many day - amazing for me! It's time for a new challenge at Stamps & Stencils and our host this month is the wonderfully creative Toni. Here's what she has to say:'It's that time of year where you may be thinking about dusting off your passport and digging out your swimsuit! Yes it's holiday time! Whether you're a lover of the seaside or someone who enjoys a city break, we would love to see your holiday inspired projects. This could be journalling, altered art, or even a good old card. Just remember that we are a mixed media challenge blog and your project should reflect that and as the name of our blog suggests, don't forget to include some stamping and stencilling.' I decided to make a little travel journal which could be used to record details of visits, photos, sketches and whatever else might take your fancy. I recently bought the Eileen Hull Passport die and was eager to use it. Here's what I made:

A journal which ties at the side to keep everything safe inside.

The journal has a solid cover with a good deep spine. There are holes for three signatures and these could be quite generous if you wished.

To start, three colours of DecoArt Fluid Acrylic are roughly brayered onto a piece of card. No need to be particular and white bits don't matter!

I used these three colours - sand, sea and sun for the perfect holiday!

Two cover pieces are cut with the die and folder embossed with some travel/holiday type words.

After folder embossing, the front cover is coated with Versamark followed by clear embossing powder. This was done twice to achieve good coverage.

The front cover raised sections are brayered with DecoArt Chalky Paint to give more definition. Again, I did this twice for good coverage.

The back cover is treated slightly differently. The chalky paint is brayered onto the embossing folder and the card is embossed. The black paint appears around the letters which is quite a good outcome. The whole of the cover is then powder embossed as before.

The inner covers are painted with Hansa Yellow Medium as used on the outside.

Inside pages for signatures are cut using the die. The inside of the spine has the same stamped design as the inside covers. The little pockets are visible here too. The grosgrain ribbon is to keep the journal closed.

The pages are cut in similar colours to some of the paint used on the outside. They are ordered together then tied into signatures through die cut holes on the pages and the spine. It would be easy to add more pages if necessary.

On this journal I've left the strings outside. It would be possible to cover them or make more of a feature with ribbon, cord, lace etc. The spine is also powder embossed for extra durability. The edges are finished with black acrylic and a piece of cut n dry.

Detail shot.

Detail shot. Love how the colours glow next to the black.

The white areas on the background give a rather good graded effect and again, the colours pop next to the black.

Love the bright colours and the wipe clean covers!

Please remember to pop over to Stamps & Stencils to see what my fabulous teamies have been making to inspire you.

So, it's your turn now and I can't wait to see you what you make for our holiday theme this month.

Wednesday, 1 July 2015

Today sees a new challenge at Our Creative Corner. We are combining our July and August challenges so you have a whole summer to create for this one!The Design Time have split into a July team and an August team so you get two doses of inspiration in the coming weeks.

Our challenge for the summer is called 'Mexico Moods' and here's what we'd like you to do:

'We want you to grab any inspiration you like from these wonderfully exotic photographs...

Go for colours, shapes, textures, objects or style - There is certainly plenty of inspiration to choose from here in this selection of glorious, vivid, colourful photographs.

Join us in the summer holiday mood....!!!'

I just love all those gorgeous colours in this image and that's what I decided to take as my inspiration. Here's what I made:

The colours from the inspiration photographs really caught my imagination. I decided to use a selection of the bright colours because they just sing together even though you may not normally think of putting them together.

I used several colours of DecoArt Media Fluid acrylics and applied them roughly to a piece of card using a brayer.

Layers are built up using stencils and stamps along with DecoArt Chalky Paints which work perfectly in this way.

Apply a thin layer of the paint to a craft sheet with a brush. Tap stamp into the paint and apply to card in a random manner. Use cut n dry foam with the stencils and paints. You must remember to clean your stamps immediately after use.

The sweet little girl is stamped onto a piece of card that I used to clean off my brayer. This 'scrap' card was stamped and stencilled in the same manner as the base of the tag. The paler colours make a good contrast to the zingy, bright colours in the background. I really like how the stencilling and stamping shows through the black archival stamped girl.

The small flowers are punched from the bright background scraps. The edges are inked and a small gem is used as the flower centre. The wings have been made using two layers and have been left unglued so they have more dimension.

The word is stamped onto a scrap and die cut into an oval. The little green studs are simply the scrap centres from a die cut which have been painted using the same shade of green from the background.

Three pieces of die cut lace are added to the bottom - again, these are cut from the bright brayered background.

A black pencil is used to 'ground' the little girl - no good to have her floating around on the tag!

The white stencilling is done with DecoArt Translucent White fluid acrylic - love how the other colours still peep through this layer from underneath.

The blue stencilling here is fluid acrylic again. The pale blue 'spots' on the left have been stamped using the DecoArt Chalky paint.

Detail shot.

Detail shot.

The stencil used is by Andy Skinner.

Hope you like how I took my inspiration from the colours in the moodboard. For further details of the challenge and the inspiration from the 'July' Design Team, pop over to Our Creative Corner.

We are lucky to have two sponsors for this challenge and they will be awarded to two lucky randomly generated winners:

As well as providing a prize for a randomly generated winner,Stampington are also very kindly offering a $2 bonus gift that can be used on e-crafting to everyone who enters the challenge'. How generous are they?!

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About Me

We all say it but I truly have been 'making' things ever since I can remember!
I taught Textiles in various Secondary Schools for nearly 27 years and loved it. I'm now retired and lucky enough to have lots of time to indulge in my passion for crafting, particularly mixed media style projects. I now live in the beautiful county of Suffolk which is a world away from my previous home in South London!